Carrier heating and high-order harmonics generation in doped graphene by a strong ac electric field

The nonlinear response of electrons (holes) in doped graphene on ac pumping is considered theoretically for the frequency region above the energy relaxation rate but below the momentum and carrier-carrier scattering rates. Temporally-dependent heating of electrons by a strong ac field, which is described within the energy balance approach, leads to an effective generation of high-order harmonics. The efficiency of up-conversion of the 1 mm radiation into the third harmonic by a single-layer graphene is about 10^{-7} at pumping level ~100 kW/cm^2, room temperature, and concentration ~5 x 10^{11} cm^{-2}.